The Broken Hearts are Singing /// ๋ถ์์ง ๋ง์์ ๋ ธ๋ํ๋ค
A pavilion for resting, singing, jamming, listeningย and everything in between
2024.9.7 โ 2024.12.1
There is a constant demand for love โ to love oneโs nation, land, or work. The demand is not for any kind of love but the correct love and the right way of loving. The obligation for the good citizen is to love the country. A good worker needs to love their work.
What are the paradoxes in this love? When loving becomes impossible and even more isolating, are there other love or ways of loving that allow life to thrive? This pavilion offers a more reparative reading of brokenness by sharing a space to sit with many ways of being togetherโ in a band, assembly and/or solitude. This is an attempt to underline the collective power by drawing connections amidst brokenness, imperfection, and incoherency.ย
This pavilion space is equipped with tools to make sound and to attune to more living compositions. The tools in this space are coming from our artist collaborators: Kenduri Rasa, Perempuan Komponis, Mira Rizki, Ella Witj, Julian Abraham โTogarโ and Nayamullah. For the next three months, our artist-collaborators will host public activities to share their tools, including Radio Isolasido, Dian Arumningtyas, Kartika Solapung, New Pessimism, Sejawat Merawat, Maria Uthe and more members of Perempuan Komponis.
For more information on the artist-collaborators, their artworks, and the Pavillionโs public activities schedule, follow us on Instagram with @brokenjam_gb24.ย
Working Team for Indonesia Pavilion at Gwangju Biennale 2024
Dana Indonesiana Kementerian Pendidikan, Kebudayaan, Riset dan Teknologi, OK Foundation, Gwangju Biennale Pavilion, Gwangju Biennale, Indoartnow, RUBANAH Underground Hub, Art Jakarta.
Supporters
Junior Tirtadji, Megain Widjaja, Benedicto Audi, Teddy Lazuardi, Iwan Lukminto, Usun Jung, Tom Tandio, Jose Dima Satria, Winfred Hutabarat, Syanda Kunto Prabowo, Amalia Wirjono, Nathan Gunawan, Deasy V. Sutanto, Deborah Iskandar, Steven Abraham, Abigail Hakim, Christiana Gouw, Rudi Lazuardi, Inez Tiffany, Joko Tanoyo, Denny Yustana, Prasodjo Winarko, Syagini Ratna Wulan & Arin Dwihartanto, Winda Malika Siregar, Luly Joenoes Iskandar, Dede Fikry, Joshua Lim.
Nayamullah Jamming and Listening Station /// ๋์ผ๋ฌผ๋ผ ์ผ ๋ฐ ์ฒญ์ทจ ์คํ ์ด์
Curatorial Proposition: The jamming station of Nayamullah and the OK Studio of Julian Abraham "Togar" are the starting point in the pavilion development. Through both installations, the pavilion is imagined as a space for call and response, listening and playing, being with each other and in solitude. The pavilion's location in the National Asian Cultural Center, as one of the free admission spaces within the 15th Gwangju Biennale, provides another context on how a communal space could look when resources are abundant.
Nayamullah is a group of researchers and a band connected through a shared interest in Danarto's works. Nayamullah has produced radio programs and composed songs based on Danarto's stories and works in an effort to keep Danarto's spirit, thoughts, and aesthetics alive. Danarto (27 June 1941 in Sragen, Central Java โ 10 April 2018, Jakarta) was an Indonesian writer and artist renowned for his interdisciplinary approach in theatre, literature, music, and visual art. His extensive style ranged from abstract, magical realism, and Sufism to concrete poetry.
Nayamullah took on one of Danartoโs methods,ย Teater tanpa penontonย (Theatre without spectators) to reconnect with other Danartoโs ideas, thoughts, and works through songs and sounds. Danarto introduced this idea at least twice. First in practice and as the name of a theatre group that he assembled to perform his 1978 โBel Geduwel Behโ play. And, later on, he elaboratedย Teater tanpa penontonย through a lecture with the same title in the 1980 Theatre Meeting in Jakarta.
Nayamullah jamming station is a continuation of Danarto's Teater tanpa penonton where visitors are invited to shift from being spectators into players as they choose to pick up any instrument and jam. The listening station plays various recorded jamming sessions from Nayamullah and Julian Abraham "Togar" as reference points. The signage is part of OK Studio, the ongoing series of work by Julian Abraham "Togar"โa place for music and events and to imagine the role of public space. The Nayamullah iterations span through the Indonesiaโs National Cultural Week (2023), The Acquiescent Allies exhibition (2022), and Istanbul Biennale (2022).
Muka di Permukaan by Mira Rizki /// ๋ฏธ๋ผ ๋ฆฌ์ฆํค์ ์๋ฉด ์์ ์ผ๊ตด
Curatorial Proposition: Mira Rizki is one of our artist-collaborators with work that connects Gwangju and other localities. In "Muka di Permukaan," Mira Rizki collects various sounds of alerts and notifications from Gwangju, Jakarta, and our shared but fragmented digital world. The work presents a composition of urgencies in sound to invite visitors to examine how it shapes our understanding and how it moves us.
Artist Statement: "Muka di Permukaan" (or "The Face on the Surface") is a sound installation that presents the noises of information through various media we encounter in our daily lives. The confusion becomes a challenge for us to create a holistic understanding of the world. The mediated information is only one layer, as there are other things beneath that happen systematically. This unrest-inducing noise may affect our belief in the scenarios unfolding before us.
If we manage to find deeper layers, will it make any change in society? Or would it just leave us disappointed and upset because everything is out of our reach? That fear kept looming over me, and I tried to keep my distance in observing it.
This work takes the form of a domestic cardboard tunnel containing two daily soundscapes commonly experienced by people today. The two soundscapes are differentiated based on the origin of the sounds: one from daily sounds in Indonesia, and one from daily sounds in South Korea. These two soundscapes are configured to be placed at certain points in the cardboard based on their sound context. Visitors can freely explore the composition they want to hear by exploring the listening space in the tunnel.
Perpustakaan Bunyi by Perempuan Komponis /// ํ๋ ๋ฏ์ ์ฝคํฌ๋์ค์ ํ๋ฅดํธ์คํ์นด์ ๋ถ๋
Perpustakaan Bunyi or the Sound Library by Perempuan Komponis is organized in three listening sections of the Pavilion. Each section presents selected works from Bunyi Puan Nusantara and Konser Ceramah or Lecture Performance by Trisutji Kamal.
Bunyi Puan Nusantara is a biennial celebration of sound organized by Perempuan Komponis: Forum & Lab through workshops, discussions, talk shows, community sharing sessions, recitals, and archival exhibitions. Indonesian women composers have contributed significantly to enriching the repertoire of Nusantara music. Their works are inspired by practical, individually centered yet socially situated, and, significantly, gendered issues they encounter.
One Day We Will Look Back and Realize that All Along We Were Blooming by Ella Wijt /// ์๋ผ ์ํธ์ "์ธ์ ๊ฐ ์ฐ๋ฆฌ๋ ๋์๋ณด๊ณ ๊นจ๋ซ๊ฒ ๋ ๊ฒ์ด๋ค, ์ฐ๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ์ค๊ณง ๊ฝํผ์ฐ๊ณ ์์์์"
Curatorial Proposition: Ella Wijt is one of the artist-collaborators in the Pavilion who already had a residency in Gwangju in 2023. The invitation to Ella is to continue and re-contextualize her work within the Pavilion's effort to deepen the relation between Gwangju and other localities. The act of collecting flower arrangements itself has become a way of experiencing the changing landscape of the city. Old shops are decreasing in the city center. Empty buildings seem to co-exist with new hip restaurants. The painted banner was made during her past residency by using natural pigments made out of plants around Horanggasy Art Polygon, the residency site. The image represents hills that connect Gwangju and Ella's past hometown, Bandung.
Artist Statement: During my stay in Gwangju, I have seen many boards of flower arrangements on the streets. The ones that I see were made to congratulate the opening of a space. These boards are made of plastic flowers, with ribbons and a few fresh flowers. Usually, after the event is finished, these flowers would be discarded in trash bins.
These flower boards caught my attention because there is a similar version of these in Indonesia, but they are made from fresh flowers on rectangular-shaped boards.
I find this gesture of congratulating with big flower boards as quite an interesting contemporary tradition. The fact that there is a version of it in Gwangju reminds me of home. It's a way that is shared between my home and this place, and maybe other places too. To me, these flower boards are a reminder of home.
To minimize the flowers from being thrown away, I decided to start collecting as many of these flowers as possible, disassemble them, and rearrange them for my work.
By collecting these flower i am remembering home. By disassembling them I am searching for home. By rearranging them in a different form i am building a memory of home and it helps me to feel at home, by putting them in Indonesia Pavilion, these flowers become my home.
Kenduri Rasa presentation by Fajar Abadi and Yudha Kusuma P. /// ์ผ๋๋ฆฌ ๋ผ์ฌ ํ๋ ์ ํ ์ด์ - ํ์๋ฅด ์๋ฐ๋์ ์ ๋ค ์ฟ ์๋ง P.
Kenduri Rasa is a series of gatherings between friends, academics, experts, and anyone with an interest in exploring various tastes, processes, and techniques which come from the socio-cultural context of Nusantara gastronomy. Kenduri Rasa went to Mandar (West Sulawesi), Samosir (North Sumatra), and Timor (East Nusa Tenggara). In October 2023, Kenduri Rasa was presented in Jakarta through Pekan Kebudayaan Nasional (The National Culture Week) via Dapur Bangsa, an open kitchen available for volunteers and visitors to experience the tastes of Mandar, Samosir, and Timor.ย
In the Pavilion, Kenduri Rasa is presented by Yudha Kusuma P. and Fajar Abadi. Fajar Abadi performs sambal jamming during the opening day of Indonesia Pavilion. After the opening day, a few sets of stone grind will be left on display so the visitors can make their own sambal sounds. Yudha Kusuma P. creates series of collages which show the food, culture, and ecological context of Mandar, Samosir, and Timor. The collages are printed as posters and available for visitors to take.
Kenduri Rasa is made possible through the work of Enin Supriyanto, Grace Samboh, JJ Rizal, Fajar Abadi, Titis Sekar, Rhea Laras, Putri Siswanto, Yudha Kusuma Putera, Ary โJimgedโ Sendy, M Revaldi, Khairunnisa.
The archives of Kenduri Rasa can be accessed through Instagram by following @jejaringrimpang.
Upon our arrival in Gwangju, it had been the plan with Mira Rizki to collect used cardboard for her installation in the Indonesia Pavilion. The installation at the Pavilion is an extended version of her previous work (https://www.acc-exhibition.com/collection/mira-rizki-kurnia/?lang=en) presented in ACC CONTEXT: Walking, Wandering at the National Asian Cultural Center in 2023.
In the middle of Gwangju's hot summer, we would walk around the streets or ask people for any cardboard waste. It's been quite a challenge, especially because none of us understand the Korean language. So we have been depending heavily on a translation app. The translation application works better in translating Bahasa Indonesia to Korean and vice versa, than from and to English. I found it awkward to speak Bahasa Indonesia to my phone since I am used to speaking English in any foreign context outside of Indonesia.
Yet it seems the awkwardness is only mine to claim. Miki, as Mira Rizki would be addressed informally, seems to possess a laid-back energy which allows her to move swiftly and ask strangers without being intrusive. I have never followed Miki in her field-recording sessions. But I could imagine Miki collecting cardboard boxes and doing field-recording in a similar poise. This observation then would make me realize the connection between scavenging and field-recording. Both are sustained by acute observation (including looking and listening). Both involve repurposing materials to create or find other values.
I have been thinking also about scavenging as a prevalent mode of working in the Indonesia Pavilion.
Ngelaras: Doing anything but work /// Ngelaras: Melakukan apapun selain kerja
A friend contacted me to say they're planning a visit, and said, "I'll bring coffee. Let's do ngelaras." Ngelaras is a Javanese word derived from 'laras', which means attuned, in sync, and harmonious. While 'laras' is a musical term, 'ngelaras' extends to a way of being, as demonstrated in the previous example. Practicingย ngelarasย implies being in tune with one's surroundings.
My friend intends to enjoy time drinking coffee, chatting, smoking, or simply observing the trees. As idyllic as it sounds, ngelaras essentially involves many activities, excluding work. I find the concept of ngelaras fascinating as it intertwines sound and labour, or perhaps the absence of work.
Seorang teman menelpon dan berkata bahwa ia berencana untuk mengunjungi saya. Dia bilang, โAku akan membawa kopi. Ayo kita ngelaras.โ Ngelaras adalah sebuah kata dalam bahasa Jawa yang berasal dari kata laras. Laras adalah istilah musik yang berarti nada. Selaras dalam Bahasa Indonesia juga berarti senada, sejalan, atau harmonis. Ngelaras atau melakukan laras artinya menjadi selaras dengan sekitar. Teman tersebut ingin ngelaras dengan minum kopi, ngobrol sana-sini, merokok atau melihat pepohonan. Dengan nuansa romantis yang dihadirkan, ngelaras berarti melakukan banyak hal selain bekerja. Saya tertarik dengan bagaimana ngelaras adalah sebuah kata yang menghubungkan antara suara dan kerja (atau bahkan penolakan atas kerja?).
Random Note on Translating Jamming /// Catatan Acak soal Menerjemahkan Jamming
How do you translate "jamming" into Bahasa Indonesia? The act of playing together, responding while being attuned to each other's sound, is not foreign to local cultures in Indonesia. However, finding one word that encapsulates this situation involves asking around and looking for translation suggestions. Literally, "jamming" can be translated as "jammed" or "something is stuck." "Traffic jam" is a common use of this word. Another word for "jamming," which is "improvisation" or "improvisasi," might be able to illustrate the action.
If you have any suggestion on translating โjammingโ in other language or context, please let us know via our e-mail, br000ken (at) daum (dot) net.
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Bagaimana menerjemahkan โjammingโ ke dalam Bahasa Indonesia? Tentu tindakan bermain bersama, saling merespon sembari menyelaraskan suara masing-masing, bukanlah sesuatu yang asing di budaya-budaya lokal di Indonesia. Tampaknya penerjemahan ini memerlukan upaya bertanya ke sekitar dan mencari rekomendasi. Dalam makna harafiah lainnya di Bahasa Inggris,ย jammingย dapat diterjemahkan ke Bahasa Indonesia sebagai kondisi macet atauย nyangkut. Kata lain yang dapat digunakan sebagai pengganti jamming adalah improvisasi. Improvisasi mungkin lebih mampu menggambarkan tindakan di dalamย jamming.
Jika anda memiliki masukan mengenai bagaimana menerjemahkan โjammingโ di bahasa atau konteks lain, silahkan mengontak kami melalui e-mail br000ken (at) daum (dot) net.
(The video is taken from Twitter. Original source is unknown.)
How does it feel to love something that doesnโt love you back?ย In popular culture, brokenheartedness is often portrayed in a cis-heteronormative relationshipโa man longing for a woman to love him back or vice versa. Yet brokenheartedness also emerges through other affective regimes such as belonging towards land, community, or even a nation.
On one hand, national borders are getting intensified, through the criminalization of dissents, the discriminating visa, or theย invisibilizationย of migrants. While at the same time, those who are considered as legitimate citizens in majority are still struggling with everyday violences in the intersection of class, race/ethnicity, or gender. Yet with all the hardships of living, the obligation of a good citizen is to love the country. What are the paradoxes in this love? When loving becomes more and more impossible, are there other ways of loving that allow us or any collective life to thrive?
This project offers a more reparative reading of brokenness. By gathering sonic practices, including jamming and composing, through the works of Julian Abraham โTogarโ and other invited artists-collectives, this framework seeks to put brokenheartedness asย scenes of possibilityย amidst the impossible. What kind of resonances emerge from a shared feeling of broken heart? Would it be too much to imagine the possibility of gathering the pieces of shattered hearts so it will beat together? How to tune our ears so we can catch them beating and hear them singing?
The pavilion is calling all the broken hearts to jam the space; to do jamming sessions with music instruments, to fill the space by sitting down, or simply to listen to one another.
Throughout the unfolding of this project within the Indonesia Pavilion at ACC Gwangju, the exhibition space will be used as a place to be together by using brokenness as a shared affect and material condition while finding the necessary alliances, affinities, towards more in the future. The three months period will be divided into three phases;
โย Phase 1: Shared belonging in brokenness
In this first phase, various rehearsals (or public programs) will be enacted as a series of attempts to use brokenness as shared affect and material condition. Brokenness is a (re)productive position with the potential that we need each other more than ever.
โย Phase 2: Brokenness as a method
In the second phase, more rehearsals will be oriented towards care and collective well-being. To care is to struggle hand in hand with each other. In this phase, more recording and documenting practices will be held as a cumulative gesture towards the future.
โย Phase 3: Broken Composition as Manifesto
In the last phase, the documentations from the previous phase will be presented. The Indonesia Pavilion will be closed with a manifesto presented in a public gathering.
